It is the fear that paralyzes you, sends blood rushing through your veins, sours your stomach, and interupts your sleep. It is the fear that gives away your power, your hope, and your forgiveness. It is fear that robs you of the active self and traps you in the role of patronizing enabler who will take them back at ANY cost...even if the price is too high. It is fear that keeps you from confronting and exposing. And fear that prevents you from enforcing your boundaries and having compassion for yourself.

Fear of abandonment.
Fear of rejection.
Fear of reaction....yours, theirs.
Fear of future...the unknown.
Fear of destitution and want.
Fear of failure.
Fear of losing.
Fear of loss.
Fear of solitude.
Fear of settling.
Fear of change.
Fear of lack of change.
Fear
Fear

Infidelity creates FEAR....and fear is crippling. Research shows us what we already know in our hearts....when we are fearful....we are unable to fire up the parts of our brains that "process" information on a logical, rational, spirtual level and create solutions that increase the odds for success in crises. When we are fearful....we don't use our neocortex....but instead, it is our limpic system which lights up our MRIs....our animal brains wired for "fight or flight".

There is no HOPE in our animal brains....because our indentity, our souls, our compassion....don't reside there. You are only capable of conflict or escape when you are there....so you must find a quiet place to deal with your fears so that you can confront, expose, do all the things that overcoming infidelity entails....all the things that happiness entails. You must value yourself as well as protect yourself, without fear of losing your WS or enforcing boundaries.....because if you don't....all your fears will be realized anyway.

These process are not designed to trap you in a marriage where your feelings are crushed and disrespected or the vows of marriage are meaningless. It's designed to help you overcome fear and give you hope that marriages CAN recover from infidelity....but you must be brave and be willing to risk losing your WS in order to regain trust, fidelity, security.

You must be willing to see beyond your pain and take logical and systematic steps to undermine the affair and increase the stability and security of your marriage. That takes courage above pain. It takes the peacefulness of knowing you are strong enough to lose a self indulgent and unrepentant spouse or recover with a flawed, but motivated one.

Don't let your fear take back a spouse who isn't ready to do the hard work recovery after infidelity entails. It is an invitation for misery.

If you don't believe you CAN survive without your WS....you cannot do what you must do to ensure success.

Stop being fearful of their threats...they are just excuses to leave or be selfish.

Stop being fearful of their reactions....their reactions arise from their guilt...not your boundaries.

Stop being fearful of taking a stand....it's the only way to gain respect or trust.

Stop being fearful of being alone.....until you can stand on your own and risk losing them, you will NEVER know if they remain with you by choice. And you will never know if you want them or you NEED them.

And if you need them....even if they return....you are in trouble chere.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: star*fish,

Star,

This post was simply stunning. So much wisdom here.

Thank you,
GS

quote:

Stop being fearful of being alone.....until you can stand on your own and risk losing them, you will NEVER know if they remain with you by choice. And you will never know if you want them or you NEED them.

These are universal jewels, not only valuable to betrayeds but everybody!

quote:

You must value yourself as well as protect yourself, without fear of losing your WS or enforcing boundaries.....because if you don't....all your fears will be realized anyway.... Don't let your fear take back a spouse who isn't ready to do the hard work recovery after infidelity entails. It is an invitation for misery.

Wow, Star, great post!

Yup, I was absolutely terrified, panic-stricken and made painful mistakes. It took a long time to stop being fearful and learn to value and protect myself.

One of my favorite quotes on fear comes from the Science Fiction classic "Dune" by Frank Hebert. The powerful and mysterious Bene Gesserit witches (who are a little bit like Penny ) have a chant:

I will not fear
Fear is the mindkiller,
Fear is the little death
That brings total Oblivion
I will face my fear
I will permit my fear to pass
Over me and through me
And where it has gone
I will turn the inner eye
Nothing will be there
Only I will remain.

This is a great thread, Star.

As I've said more than a few times before, fear has been constant in my life for many years. The thing that boggles my mind is that I wasn't always like this. That means, to me, that I wasn't BORN with fear. It is something I learned.

My personality is such that I have done one of two things when I've been afraid: Run blindly TOWARD the thing that scares me, or ruminate about it for so long that by the time I decide to move forward the fear is all-but removed. Neither choice serves me well.

I would like to tap into the childlike place where I put my neighbor's snake around my neck... climbed trees (now *that* would be something to see at this time of my life - LOL)... and most of all, said what I needed to say to protect myself.

What happens with fear, I think, is that it propogates (sp) itself. The fear grows, if you allow it. It seems to be a natural progression, too, if left unchecked.

Anyway, just wanted to add my thoughts and say 'thank you' for sharing your perspective... which I think is a very wise one.

Star -

As you know all to well this was a major issue for me. I'm sure the delay in my addressing the infidelity issue contributed to the distruction/chaos.

Newbies - You all would do well to print this thread out, read it several times, highlight it... Do what needs to be done. You are in a high risk situation. Not taking action is almost certainly going to result in the very things you are afraid of. Defend your family!

THANKS!!
SB

Bump to the top!

Here's the Thought for the Day from Hazelden for March 30:

There seemed to be endless obstacles preventing me from living with my eyes open, but as I gradually followed up clue after clue it seemed that the root cause of them all was fear.
--Joanna Field

How often have we complained that we would be able to do something if only another thing weren't preventing us. I can't is our answer when we look around us and see only potential obstacles to accomplishing something. We need to realize, however, that I can't is just another way of saying I fear.

If we took away our fearfulness, think of all we could do. There would be nothing to prevent us from taking risks, trying new things, going new places, becoming more intimate, changing careers, going back to school...

We can change our response of I can't to I'll try. We can take the first step away from our fear toward trying something new. There are no obstacles in our path only the ones we put there to protect us from things we fear.

Higher Power, help me take the steps to change from I can't to I can.

What a great post about fear!! For me there is also the fear of being wrong - making the wrong decision.

If I tell WS to go, there is also the fear that I am driving him into OW's arms, when if I am patient he may choose to stay with me.

There is the fear that I am listening to other people's opinions rather than my own intuition and being influenced by them.

There is the fear that I will never find someone to make me feel loved and safe, if WS cannot why should anyone else?

But there is also the acknowledgement of fear and that can be empowering. What a mess!!!

quote:

There is the fear that I am listening to other people's opinions rather than my own intuition and being influenced by them.

And the fear that I'm confusing the voice of my intuition with the voice of my fears...

bump!

bump again. I just love this thread.

bump for Questions!

Thank you so much GS - I think this is just what I need....tomorrow I shall do my reading!For now...time to try to get some sleep.
THANKS AGAIN --Questions

This bump is for anyone who is struggling right now.

The initial post on this thread is really powerful. May it give you some strength today.
GS

bump

So, how do you get rid of fear?

quote:

Originally posted by JC:
So, how do you get rid of fear?

First post on here because I too want an answer to that question, JC.

It's only been 23 days since "discovery" of my guy's affairs (he was having several internet/phone affairs at the same time - yippee). He had become so close with one of them, they arranged to meet in another city as she was changing planes on a trip.

The "layover" (pun intended) was around 4 hours and they planned to do their thing at a hotel near the airport. They had been doing it online and on the phone for a long time, so this was just the physical consummation.

As it turned out, I called him just after they had met at the airport, plus her fiance called her around the same time. Supposedly these calls "snapped them back to reality", and they weren't able to go thru with it. I will never know for sure, but I know from his cell phone record, there was only a 1 hour period that he did not dial me or his son during the time she was there, so....

He is extremely remorseful and says he just got "caught up" in this "game room" on the internet and was getting sooo much adoring attention from all these women, he just lost touch with reality. (Big warning sign if your spouse spends too much time on a game site. I didn't even know the site had chat or IM until now.)

We are doing pretty good actually....learning to treat each other as separate human beings, and talking A LOT.

But I absolutely KNOW I don't have the whole story, even though I have begged him to tell me now so I can start to heal. Everything I have found out I had to drag out of him.

So I keep having anxiety/panic attacks at random times, with no trigger I can identify. I just fall to pieces and doubt everything. His doing this was the biggest shock of my life! It was the one thing I never feared from him. And it's been going on so long, I now have to wonder how much of our 20 years has been a lie.

Yes, fear is MY biggest problem.

Welcome, justwokeup, sorry to see you here, but you have found a good place for personal and marital recovery. :-)

What you are experiencing is (unfortunately) "normal" for what you have recently been through.

As for the question from you and JC ~ How do you get rid of fear?

Simple ~ face it. Delve in and explore what scares you the most. Being alone? Living alone? Divorce? Knowing that if any of these things actually happen, that you won't actually die, is a big first step.

I remember the first time my X left me for his first A partner ~ I thought I would die. Literally. Was I surprised the next morning when I woke up ~ Alive!

But it is a process. A process of communication with your guy (husband? do you have kids? maybe start your own thread and introduce yourself so you don't get lost over on this thread....), with yourself, creating a support system for yourself. Focus and identify what you need, and make a plan for going about and getting it. :-)

It is very typical for the Wayward Person (WP) to not fess up details. If they would right away, it would probably speed everything else along. But for several reasons, they don't. They think they are "protecting" us from the gory details, from more pain ~ but that isn't how it works. I read a really good analogy the other day. Let me see if I can find it.

quote:

I read this on another site and I've been given permission to use it here. It is how a BS got the truth from her WH.

She (and he) wanted to recover but she felt she wasn't getting the "whole" story. He didn't understand WHY she needed it so bady. So she did this.

"I tell him this:

"Imagine a police officer holding a briefcase rings your doorbell and tells you "BS" is dead.

You ask: "What? How?"

The police officer says: "It doesn't matter. All you need to know is she is dead".

You say: "But when? Where? Who caused it? Did she suffer?"

The police officer says: "Sir, I have all that information right here in my briefcase. But you don't need to know any of it. It may hurt you. You may cry. It will be painful. You will get angry. All you need to know is BS is gone."

Her WH told her all the remaining information.

Create your own thread so everyone can properly introduce themselves after this slow-internet-traffic weekend is done. :-)

Spidey